


under the rose water

by AlexSeanchai



Series: nine lives, snake's eyes [12]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Minor Adrien Agreste/Lila Rossi, POV Chloé Bourgeois, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:54:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28568835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Sabrina may be sweeter than Chloé deserves, but Chloé certainly doesnotdeserve this stony silence from Adrien, or the cold shoulder from so many classmates, or Dupain-Cheng's outright thievery.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Chloé Bourgeois, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Chloé Bourgeois & Sabrina Raincomprix
Series: nine lives, snake's eyes [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959910
Comments: 9
Kudos: 77





	under the rose water

**Monday, 20 April**

Chloé sweeps into the classroom as a queen to her throne. Sabrina looks up from her phone, smiles, and taps the small paper bag waiting at Chloé's desk. Adrien stills, head propped on his left hand, attention locked on the coin he's flipping silently across his knuckles. Of the half of the class already here, only Alix doesn't find something else to look at.

It is right and proper, of course, for her subjects to avert their eyes from true majesty.

She seats herself beside Sabrina and unfolds the top of the bag. Cinnamon and vanilla and rose—oh, this will be one of the best baklava samples Sabrina's found her!

Dupain-Cheng hurtles into the room, careens off Chloé's desk, and crashes into Adrien. "Sorry sorry sorry!" she exclaims to Adrien, who isn't moving to disentangle them, before turning to Chloé and Sabrina. "Sorry."

The baklava in its cupcake liner has only skidded, not taken any damage. Chloé rolls her eyes. "You and gracefulness are still not friends, I see."

"Speaking of not being acquainted with social graces," mutters Alix. Chloé whips around to glare at her.

"You're fine," Adrien assures Chloé. "Not the usual way girls throw themselves at me…"

Dupain-Cheng starts laughing.

—Oh. He wasn't talking to _Chloé_ at all.

Ridiculous. She's—it's been more than two months. And everyone knows no one is responsible for what they do when akumatized— _everyone_ —and except for two superheroes and two supervillains and Chloé, _no one_ knows what happened on her parents' anniversary. Utterly ridiculous!

"Hands off my boyfriend," spits Lila.

"Breathe, girl," Césaire says, getting up to move between Lila and Adrien's lapful of Dupain-Cheng. "Marinette's not stealing your boy."

Adrien slides into Nino's empty seat, scoots Marinette off of him, and places both hands flat on the desk. (Is he practicing cheap magic tricks? The coin's vanished.)

Dupain-Cheng tosses her head like she's rolling her eyes. "Adrien is not a piece of jewelry that someone could _steal_ ," she fumes. "He's too talkative for that." With worrying speed, she straightens her spine, drops her shoulders, and puts enough smile on her face that Chloé doesn't need to see it to know it's there. "Speaking of, Adrien, did I get your ring size right?" She fishes a wide silver ring out of her pocket and slaps it down next to Adrien's hand.

This Chloé _has_ to see.

"What was that about not stealing my boy?" Lila says, ripping her arm out of Césaire's grasp and leaping back to the front of the room.

Too bad for her, the ring's already in Chloé's hand. There's an inscription inside: " 'Against the world'," Chloé reads aloud. "What is this, Dupain-Cheng, a wedding ring?"

She shrugs. "Maybe it used to be. I got it at an estate sale. Amazing what you can find at estate sales."

"She wouldn't know," Adrien says, both Lila's wrists caught in his hand. "She makes her father buy diamonds at retail prices."

Chloé's fingers fly to the pendant Daddy gave her for her birthday last June. "Just because your pitiful little so-called friends can't afford _real_ jewelry—"

"I'm sure you're the local expert on precious metal quality. And the physics of gem formation, both laboratory and geological. And the ethics of diamond mining." Marinette extends her hand, palm up, eyes hard as sapphires. "Give it back."

Embarrassingly, the ring is stamped .925: sterling silver, not whatever base-metal costume jewelry Chloé was expecting that only looks worth something. It is still not _good_ jewelry, but if the stamp is honest, the ring is at least not trash. "If Adrichou wants real jewelry, he knows where to find me," Chloé snaps anyway.

"Give it back," Adrien repeats. Emerald is less hard a gem than sapphire, but not by much. "I don't have so many gifts from my oldest friends that I'm okay with letting you steal one."

'Steal' is such a strong word. Chloé is going to give it back anyway. She always was. Eventually.

Lila glares at Chloé, yanking herself out of Adrien's grip with enough force to swing her pendant out of her shirt. "Hand it over," Lila orders, tucking the pendant away again. (It's abstract line art of a small animal curled up to sleep, and it's probably plated brass, not the twenty-four-karat gold it wants to look like. Adrien's so-called girlfriend has _no_ taste.)

Chloé sniffs and turns the ring over in her hand.

Adrien sighs. "Lila. Dolcezza. Peperoncetta. Please do not harass the first friend I ever had." Turning to Dupain-Cheng—who's gone around behind Chloé to nudge Césaire over and sit smugly in Césaire's usual seat—he smiles, showing off the silver ring on his right hand. "Perfect fit."

That little pickpocket! But shouting about it, when everyone will agree Dupain-Cheng only stole it _back_ , will get Chloé even less far than shouting about her missing bracelet the day Dupain-Cheng stole that. So Chloé stalks the three paces back to her desk, empty hands clenched, and bites into the baklava.

Then grimaces at the taste. "Don't waste your time at this place anymore," Chloé snaps to Sabrina. "They added more flavoring to pretend their walnuts haven't gone rancid."

Sabrina whips out her phone, opening a restaurant reviews app to—ugh—the West Asian restaurant that is, was, Chloé's second-favorite source of baklava. "I'm sorry," she says, under the sound of Césaire scolding Lila back to her seat. "I didn't notice."

Chloé snorts; it isn't like it's _Sabrina's_ fault. "Weren't you listening? You weren't supposed to notice. That was their whole point."

**Author's Note:**

> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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